As a kettlebell instructor, I was taught to love overhead pressing. Problem is, less and less people these days have the upper back and shoulder mobility to do overhead pressing without getting some pain.
Now, for most people that has a lot to do with sitting at a desk, and just not having the thoracic spine (upper back) and shoulder mobility to press. If that's your issue, you should be working on your mobility at the same time, to get back what you've lost.
But then there are also lots of us that have had surgeries, injuries, or just have high mileage shoulders.
My friend and kettlebell genius Master RKC Andrew Read wrote this great article over at Breaking Muscle about how to keep going overhead and save your shoulders.
What's great about Andrew's article, is that he provides two great workouts that are awesome workarounds. I'm a huge fan of corrective exercise and fixing things over time. I'm not a huge fan of waiting around for things to get fixed.
This article will give you a great program to get some serious overhead work in, even if strict pressing doesn't work for you:
(click to read the full article)
read more:
P.S. I know there has been a lot of SFG vs RCK drama about this article on certain message boards and Facebook and stuff, which is totally silly. All of the drama centers around what percentage of people have shoulder issues or not. Who cares? I just think the overhead ballistic complexes are really great for people who do have shoulder issues.
P.P.S. I think most of the us vs. them stuff that happens is mostly marketing or drama. Everyone I know is just interested in getting better, and sharing good information.
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